Lightbringer

Nifty solution. I'm not experienced enough with IE modding to analyze the code logic. Would items or abilities that grant immunity or other bonuses against gaze attacks still get to apply? (Edit)... I think I see something of what you're doing. It looks like any and all standard bonuses/penalties/immunities would still apply -- you're just creating workaround to implement disadvantage using duplication of existing effects. Adding 5e advantage/disadvantage mechanics in situations to IE games could be fascinating.

Ha! Well don't think too hard. Ehh ... I can't stop my DM wheels from turning. The specific vulnerability was an inability to avert your eyes, thus preventing you from taking a blindness penalty to avoid having to make a save every round. That mechanic doesn't exist in BG. Probably the most appropriate thing would be a -4 to saves vs gaze attacks -- assuming there is some kind of internal tag indicating a gaze attack, as they range from vs spells, death, poly, etc. Presumably, various defenses that make you immune to gaze attacks would override the vulnerability.

Wow I like that one. Great for a thief/mage. Are you going to include the vulnerability to gaze attacks from PnP? (I'm good with "no" ... )

Fair point about design from the outset. Personally, I think the Robe is fine as is -- in a mod-vacuum. For a single class wizard, Str is mostly useless. You probably already have a 16 Con, so you don't get any HP benefit. Best case is a little better AC, and maybe getting your Con HP-capped at 16, if it wasn't already. Your fighter is already wearing the Gauntlets of Ogre Power (and doesn't have a Wizard's THAC0) and your other fighter read the Str manual from Candlekeep and has Hill Giant Strength. I've heard about the Durlag's Goblet issue. I never saw it as much of a problem. In the base game, I considered it a pretty useless item, as the character that drinks from it gets feared as soon as battle is joined (iirc). (Edit: Looked into it, and apparently it was bugged to grant a FULL heal, instead of the listed 5hp. That's obviously whacked. Apparently I believed the description and never used it. The 12 hour panic curse is monstrous. Read a thread that suggested keeping item as is, but with a 1/day use, instead of charges cheaply restored via shopkeeper. Sounds reasonable. The below stuff assumes a small amount of healing, not a full heal, so I guess it's mostly moot ) Even in EE/EET with various fear-immune kits, it's not really that big a deal. You're talking, one maybe two party members. The game engine itself makes for an easier game, so right there the impact of one or two characters getting free healing is not as drastic. (Just remembered, wasn't there a Khel's Helmet that made the wearer immune to fear -- thus introducing that "loophole" into the base game?) And here's the strange issue with design. I'm guessing that modders have to design and balance assuming that their mod is the only one present. It makes sense, because otherwise how on earth could you account for anything/everything? At the same time, it's also rather unrealistic. How many of us just one mod? We all mod differently. This was a problem they had with D&D 3.0/3.5 supplements. They had to assume each supplement was the only supplement in play -- which was almost never the case. It led to weird synergies at some times, and annoying nerfs in others, that we had to houserule around. (In the above example of the Goblet, I'm probably level 10-12 (level cap removed) going through Durlag, with all kinds of power boosts and items from other mods, and I have several items that give me regen -- not to least of which is a belt from Thal's Item Upgrade that grants +3AC, Regen, and +1Str. And that one's pre-bandit camp. I'm pretty sure I can get another item or two of regen. All the Goblet does is make it so I have one fewer character to pass the belt around to between fights to heal up. Not to mention I'm nearly double the level originally expected for ToTSC.) Edit: Cool story, if it wasn't a full heal >.> At the same time, there's no way you can necessarily assume my case is typical. Might be common. 'Dunno. Point is, I'm not sure if time spent worrying about smaller levels of unbalancing is worthwhile -- maybe just the great big screaming ones (Edit: which, incidentally, a FULL healing Goblet is one such, so it seems). It's a tricky problem. Your general idea about watching for unintended consequences certainly stands.

See? OP for some is meh for others. Me? I'd probably pop out NI, tick the Fighter/Mage and Thief/Mage box, give it to Imoen, Dynaheir, or Charname, and enjoy a power burst for BG1 -- knowing that it'll all be reset going into BG2.

Back on track! I second Arthas' remarks regarding unique items. In my opinion, it's okay for a mod to introduce an item that exceeds (within reason) vanilla items. Same guidelines Arthas posted. Make me earn it. In a way, that's exactly what TotSC did. I very much enjoy finding those little spikes in power peppered throughout the game. I always felt that there was a dearth of magic items in BG1, followed by an explosion of power and wealth in BG2. Tossing in NTotSC, DSotSC, Stone of Askavar, Bone Hill, and others into BG1 helps to smooth out that power curve. I like that there are powerful items guarded by vampires in the new Firewine, or the DoomTeddy, sword spiders, and vampire wolves in the Temple map next to Beregost. If you think you can handle it, go get 'em tiger -- and be rewarded. I cannot agree more. Incidentally, some creatures already benefit from SCS. The lesser vampires in the new Firewine areas get all the SCS buffs (which made for some awesome fights). Spiders, trolls, mages. All get boosts from SCS no matter where they come from. Packs of orc mages/priests in Bone Hill were quite challenging. I imagine they will be the same in the various orc-encamped forests in NToTSC. Also, Ghost Ghotal sounds great! Shadow Orc minions (especially those tactical groups) would add well.

For what it's worth, thanks to all you modders to DO all the great work you do. And thanks, Jastey, for updating the mod to fit in better with BG1. It's still a great post-game challenge, without being an unscalable beef-wall. I tried a mod that had a great premise -- adding a ton more assassins sent by Sarevok, and a quest to conquer their stronghold. It was fun -- except for the item load. A low level assassin on the road to Beregost (easily defeated) had a sword that would worthy of ToB. Later, non-unique groups of assassins all had Varsconas. It completely ruined the itemization experience of the game, and made me question the judgement of the mod author. I discovered that it was absolutely the intent of the author, and I made the choice to not use the mod. I'm glad that -- after the mod authors leave the community -- others are willing to pick up their work and modernize it to fit in better with the BG continuity. I'm sorry, but being "broken" IS a thing. Handing out +3 weapons to level 1 characters, or stacks of +2 platemail on scrubs, or whatever IS actually broken. When I hear stories about what NToTSC and DSotSC used to contain, I shudder. Now, I can enjoy their quest content within a complete EET megamod experience, from Candlekeep to the Throne.

I love how some error I experienced months ago and have long since forgotten about can come around and help someone else out a few days ago. Forum magic!

Fantastic, Jastey! Even going through SoD, this adds much needed continuity. Solid spot on my modlist

Thanks for the update to reassure us once again Sometimes we can be like frightened forest animals that way

Yeah, that was my first idea. I'm guessing that most of my mods won't have this issue, as I don't think most of the others have their own worldspace or are specifically accounted for in the EET map. My willing suspension of disbelief is vfery stronk. I already use ctrl-J quite liberally. Thanks a ton for that link, btw. Having all the codes in one place is very useful!

I'm experiencing an issue with Secret of Bonehill. I'm posting about it here because I think it may involve the EET Worldmap (also partially because the most recent comment in SoBH's forum was over a year ago). From @K4thos , in the Concept for an new BP-BGT Worldmap thread, emphasis mine: "no matter what I've tried I didn't manage to make IWD-in-EET areas look good (or fit at all in the available space) on BP-BGT-Worldmap (some mods compatible with EET are dependent upon it, which forces me to make IWD-in-EET compatible with it as well)." Secret of Bonehill has its own world map. It's an island with its own areas. Last time I tried an EET Megamod install, I used the BP-BGT worldmap. Everthing worked fine with Bonehill. I much prefer the look of the EET worldmap, so this time I used it instead. I just started Secret of Bonehill, and went to transition between areas on its island. What I found was the main Sword Coast world map, instead of the Bonehill island. The game was treating me as though I had never left the Temple of Lathander (which is where you teleport to Bonehill from). I can think of several possible solutions. One is to find the area codes to transport myself as needed for Bonehill, then move on with the game after. However, I have a megamod install and I am concerned that this issue will arise again due to K4thos' comment referenced above. Another option is to go ahead and install the BP-BGT worldmap on top of my existing install. I am unsure about this one though. Do I need to uninstall an EET worldmap first? I saw conflicting info about needing starting a new savegame with the v10 BP-BGT map. The instructions included in the package were for version 6, and had requirements I can't meet, such as a copy of the dialog.tlk from after all mods, but before the EET map was installed. Due to text strings (I think there are different names for some of the areas?) I'm suspicious that I may corrupt my existing save if I install BP-BGT, maybe also if I then uninstall it. Any advice as to what may have happened or what course I can/should take? I'd like to not have to blow up my current EET install and do it all over from scratch, but it's better to do so only 45 hours in, pre-bandit camp BG1, than 145 hours in, somewhere in the wilds of Amn ...

"D'you wanna tell me a story about trollops and plugtails? Pleeeeeease?" "If not, then I shall slaughter everyone you know and love." I'm having trouble envisioning the goddess of murder being so obsessed with all things pink. Then again ... BG2 does play with the whole "broke the cutie" trope. The cognitive dissonance could provide for a eerily terrifying goddess of murder. If done just right, the complete fall into depravity of a once beloved symbol of innocence could be truly horrifying.

Nevertheless, your English is far better than most native speakers I know. If I didn't already know from other contexts, I would have never guessed it wasn't a first language for you

Finally getting around to trying v32 and the slider. I had been waiting for IWD-in-EET for "one run to rule them all", then realized I had enough NPCs to play with the require several runs. So here I am You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar for your incredible work, diligence, and attentiveness to this mod. The difficulty slider revolutionizes SCS. I am now confident enough to install Smarter Mages -- knowing that if I get destroyed by arcane casters that were created at high level for their HP and Saves (Silke is level 10 ), but now have their full arsenal and AI, I can adjust as I wish on the fly. Makes all the difference. In fact, I'm about to increase the Mages slider from where I had it, post Tarnesh, Silke, and the Nashkel Fair tent. So far, your upping the ante of the game reminds me a lot of what I do as DM at my home D&D table to my powergamer players. It helps keep things interesting, after all these years, and with all those crazy levels, magic items, and abilities. Looking forward to the rest!

Thanks for the files. The NPCs installed without error with them

Thanks for posting your solution, Nathan. I encountered the same issue with BHBBOB (Sir Billy Bob, a quest giver in the mod -- not a real combatant). Your solution worked perfectly. Thankfully, the rest of Smarter Mages installed without issue, for my mod setup.

I just wanted to give a quick Kudos to whoever included this awesome feature of G3. Something in the forums autodetects when we use acronyms and provides a readout on mouse hover. That's seriously useful and nicely newbie friendly. Well done! EET BG2 BG1 TotSC SCS SoD ToB BGT See?

Thanks for the advice, Jastey. Interestingly, the 3 NPCs that installed with warnings are BG2 NPCs, so I shouldn't have to worry about any lingering BG1 issues. I guess the only thing would be the transition to ToB. I don't really understand what is happening there, but if you say it's no problem, then that's that. The only way it would be relevant to my game would be for an NPC that I would keep for all of SoA and ToB. Plus, I'm not afraid to hack about with EEKeeper and Near Infinity. I can probably correct manually anything "lost" in the transition -- if I understand the above correctly.

Going for a new EET Install and I ran into a few odd errors: 3 of my NPC mods (Auren Aseph, Sarah, and Tyris Flare) encountered the same error. #EET_NPC_TRANSITION patching for K#AUREN: BG2 NPC without BG1 content #WARNING EET_NPC_TRANSITION: "K#AURE25.bcs" doesn't exist in game That's Auren's as a sample. The other two are identical for their names. Is that a problem? Amber, Fade, and IsraBG2 all installed without error or warning. (Edit) Removed question about SCS and EET_end, having found a thorough examination on the SCS forum

I stand corrected. I did see that in the FAQ.

From what I've seen it does. Sometimes the trick is to find the right category. Update: I just loaded in a modlist of about 75 mods. All of them loaded as "Uncategorized", so I will need to manually place them in the appropriate categories. There are still the nice GUI checkboxes for all the components, as in BWS. The categories are sorted in an order, but it can be a little vague. It really comes down to judgement calls, in some cases. I just wish there was a way to check conflicts between mods. I really liked how the EET Setup Tool would notify me of conflicts within mods and prompt me to resolve or ignore and how to do so. Most of the conflicts weren't things I would've thought of. PI has a lot of serious potential. Right now, it looks completely workable, but requires a bit of guesswork from the user. With metadata tags and the ability to search for and download mods from Github, it could become really robust and extremely user-friendly. That will require modders to tag and make their mods ready for PI -- something that can happen with widespread acceptance of this as a new standard.

From what I can tell, there's an install order sorter within PI based on categories (NPC, QUEST, ITEM, etc). It looks like you have to manually assign mods to those categories, then PI will install them. I'm also using an old Weidu log from a previous install to help guide my install order. (and to re-download everything, to ensure I'm current and not inadvertently using any "unofficial" versions ). Others might have more detailed information. Basically, having just acquired all my mods, I'm going to just up and launch PI and see what happens like a brash wild-man xD

I do know the Project Infinity in Alien's sig is an alternative. It is an install tool that has EET support. I had previously used Roxanne's tool (quite successfully), but with the already voiced concerns regarding the silent changes I'm switching to Project Infinity. In fact, I'm updating my mods and gathering the required knowledge and resources to perform such an install right now.

Very interesting. It'll probably take awhile for me to wrap my mind around the consequences of and new possibilities created by this hybrid of 2.0 and 3.5. Custom System multiclass characters below level 10 are at a severe disadvantage compared to 2nd ed System characters at the same level. It is around level 9 that the "double your xp to level" rate changes. That is why at lower levels, 2nd ed multiclass characters tend to be only 1 level behind, despite splitting XP gains in half. Once the xp progression stabilizes around level 10 (say, 200k XP per level for a fighter), the distinction in systems will return to the mean as 2nd ed multiclasses fall further behind their single class counterparts. (A mechanism I'm using in my megamod install to curb power levels) It sounds like much of this was borrowed from existing IWD2-in-BG style mods, so I guess the systems have been hashed out before. Regardless, we still have full choice. I will likely stick with 2nd ed rules, at least at first. I have too many mods and tweaks that adjust how the 2nd ed class system works to try and adapt or filter them to the 3rd ed changes -- at least for right now. Exciting stuff!